(This post was written by me about a month back. Something clearly distracted me while writing it and I have forgotten about it. And now the events are too far back for me to remember what I wanted to say. So I will simply publish it half-written, without editing, grammatical and spelling errors in all glory)
Recently, for a certain reason, I found myself in a hospital, reading in bold letters at the entrance to the ward, "Tender coconuts not allowed." Tender coconut; the nut of life, as Bear Grylls called it before going on to extol its virtues. With a high potassium content and a host of other nutrients, minerals etc. etc. it is an extremely healthy commodity. In India at least, doctors recommend tender coconut water to relieve tiredness and dehydration during a stomach upset. There exist accounts of people marooned on remote islands in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and living for several weeks and/or months on solely the extracts of coconut, namely the pulp and the water, and returning as healthy as ever.
Why would someone ban tender coconut in a hospital.
"Achche din aane waale hain". Hindi for "good days are coming" was the tagline for the successful election campaign of the BJP in India. Subsidies abound in India, more so during elections. For a nation that imports petroleum, whose currency is struggling against the United States Dollar, it makes sense to hike the rate every now and then to reduce the burden on the coffers. Rates are never hiked in election season, so a rate hike is inevitable once elections are done to restore a semblance of sustainability. To protest hikes in Diesel prices and Rail fares (trains run on diesel mainly) and label the government anti-poor is ridiculous. My political allegiance is not what prompts me to think this, but my common sense and my incredulity at the fact that people are so short-sighted and seeking to make political mileage out of everything.
More nationalistic stuff. The word secularism is probably the most used as well as the most incorrectly used word in India this election season. Each person, each organisation has its own take on this most controversial word. I happened to come across a person (belonging to a certain religion, call it XYZism) saying he wasn't too unhappy with Narendra Modi as Prime Minister but was worried that the fact that the intersection of the set of members of parliament belonging to the ruling BJP and the set of followers of XYZism in India formed a null set would lead to insufficient representation of the dreams, aspirations and desires of the XYZ people. In my book, secular means the state recognises no religion and sees every person as just a citizen. What exactly are the dreams of XYZ people? Jobs? Money? Water and power? Higher standard of living? How is that a dream of the people of XYZism. It is the dream of every citizen and has got nothing to do with any religion. I sincerely wish that all Indians, followers of every faith, are happy under the BJP regime and beyond. But to prioritise religious issues over pressing common issues, such as development, weak rupee, inflation etc., which affects all religions the same is not in the interests of the nation. And secularism is nation first. I wish religions weren't viewed as vote banks. And talks of the "Dalit vote" or the "Muslim vote" would be more and more replaced by socio-economic concepts such as "urban vote" and "middle class vote".
I may have touched a nerve or two with the above paragraph (Well if anyone read it), so I would like to say I am not against religion, or any particular religion. I just think it should be superseded by human welfare, which surely unites all religions.
The Beas river tragedy, in which more than two dozen young men and women were swept away by the sudden rise of the River Beas due to the opening of a dam(n) gate left us all shaken. Why weren't authorities more vigilant of activities downstream while opening the water? Why weren't the tourists warned? The rather unprofessional video a passer-by took (which is now, quite obviously, on youtube) is quite traumatic. After the initial shock of watching people being swept away by the ferocious current, I went back to rationalise the events. Yes, the authorities in question should be taken to task for their lackadaisical attitude, but the students, well over 18 years of age; clearly old enough to be responsible for themselves, had no business, and should have several qualms over venturing so far into the river channel. It is one thing to be standing at the side of the river and being swept away by the surge, and quite another to be placed precariously on a rock in the middle of the absolutely gushing river. It was just 3 weeks back that I was exactly there, by the Beas river near Kullu. An avid watcher of National Geographic and The Discovery Channel in my younger days, it was obvious to me that straying too close to the rapids is rather unwise. To see adults going right to the middle of the river, with a sheer tsunami right beneath them, was befuddling. It is probably a measure of how much we have lost touch with nature, how in our shells of concrete we have forgotten the power of flowing water.
Maybe we need a dose of this
http://randomblogishere.quora.com/The-man-who-lives-without-money-and-believes-in-Gandhis-quote-%E2%80%9Cbe-the-change-you-want-to-see-in-the-world%E2%80%9D